


Needing (Is One Thing) & Getting (Is Another)

by shitty4eyes



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Changki being cute, College whee, M/M, Parties, There's probably a life lesson in here somewhere, Time jumps?, Weed, i don't know how to tag things anymore, relationship study?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 08:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17998310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitty4eyes/pseuds/shitty4eyes
Summary: The facts are these:Fact number one: They’re outside. Specifically, on Hoseok’s balcony.Fact number two: At some point during the night, someone had thrown a blanket over them.Fact number three: The sun is just peeking over the horizon, painting the sky blue and pink and everything in between, and it was beautiful. Sunrises were beautiful, out of reach, untouchable, and entirely unimportant compared to the boy using him as a glorified pillow. Kihyun’s hand hovers above the boy’s head, ghosting over the unruly dark locks there, and he wonders when exactly he’d decided that Im Changkyun was a sunrise.Fact number four: Kihyun had fucked up.





	Needing (Is One Thing) & Getting (Is Another)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eunmih](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eunmih/gifts).



 

\--- Im Changkyun ; 19th of February 2018 ; At Some Point --   
  


 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Changkyun is vaguely aware that this isn't love. 

He's cuddled up in front of their makeshift laptop television, nestling into his boyfriend's chest, but he can't get comfortable. He feels antsy, like there's something he's supposed to do, something he's ignoring, and part of him wants to go do it while the other part of him insists there's nothing to do. 

“Are you okay?”

Changkyun nods because that's exactly what he is. He focuses his eyes on the movie as another boy and girl fall slowly in love like they have any clue what they’re doing. He's on his boyfriend's couch, in his arms, and it feels a lot like pushing a puzzle piece in where it doesn't belong.    
  
  


 

\-- Yoo Kihyun ; 2nd of March 2019 ; 07:32  --

  
  


 

Kihyun can it feel ringing in his ears, gathering and solidifying on his bones to impede movement and pair it with a tight, pulling pain. He sits up and winces against the weight on his chest, draped over his legs. People are scattered haphazardly across the living room inside, unconscious and draped over available surfaces like shrapnel after an explosion.

_ Wait. _

Kihyun slowly sits back, swallowing around a dry throat and blinking hard against eyelids that scrape like sandpaper. He tries to focus and looks down at the warm weight pressing onto him and a lot lot of things fall into place at once.

The facts are these:

Fact number one: They’re outside. Specifically, on Hoseok’s balcony.

Fact number two: At some point during the night, someone had thrown a blanket over them. 

Fact number three: The sun is just peeking over the horizon, painting the sky blue and pink and everything in between, and it was beautiful. Sunrises were beautiful, out of reach, untouchable, and entirely unimportant compared to the boy using him as a glorified pillow. Kihyun’s hand hovers above the boy’s head, ghosting over the unruly dark locks there, and he wonders when exactly he’d decided that Im Changkyun was a sunrise.

Except now--now Kihyun could do this, right? Could let his hand fall and his fingers card through Changkyun’s hair, breathe in tandem with him as his hand grip slightly at Kihyun’s shirt. 

He’s warm. Of course he’d be warm. He’s a sunrise, of course he’d be warm.

(There are a lot of feelings thrown in with the facts sometimes. Kihyun tries not to dwell on it.)   
Fact number four: Kihyun had fucked up.

God, had he always been such a selfish idiot?

“Yes,” Minhyuk answers simply when Kihyun asks him, both of them seated at the kitchen counter of their flat an hour or so later. “But that’s not the problem. It generally is, but not right now.”

Kihyun groans loudly into his hands. Minhyuk is glaring at him over his third cup of coffee, and Kihyun can’t blame him. Minhyuk had been his lift to that goddamn party, and after Kihyun realised what he’d  _ done _ he’d only taken enough time to make sure Changkyun was still sleeping soundly before dragging Minhyuk off of Jooheon and into the driver’s seat of his car. There was the exact expected amount of swearing involved.

“It’s me,” Kihyun says, staring, eyes unfocused, at the fridge. “I’m the problem.”

Minhyuk scratches at his cheek. “Listen, if you’re looking for someone to disagree with that, I can call Hoseok.”

“Only disagree with me if I’m wrong.”

“You generally are.”

“So I’m  _ not _ the problem?”

Minhyuk looks him in the eye and takes a long sip of his coffee before speaking. “Oh, no, you’re the problem,” he says, getting up to rummage in the fridge. “I said ‘generally’. Generally gives way to exception. Which this is.”

Kihyun groans, slumping. “I’m a despicable disgrace of a human being.”

“Keep going,” Minhyuk says, laughs under his breath. “I could listen to this all day.”

Kihyun stops slumping to glare. “Maybe I should call Hoseok.”

Minhyuk rolls his eyes, plopping down on the bar stool again to eat grated cheese out of a plastic tupperware he’d just taken out of the fridge. “You want my advice?”

Kihyun scrunches his nose. “I want  _ advice _ . You’re the closest.”

Minhyuk sighs heavily, leans to the side, reaching for his laptop and tapping at the keyboard to revive it. “So this is about Changkyun, right--”

Kihyun perks up like a meerkat spotting a nearby predator. 

“Who said that--”

“A very simple solution would be--”

“Why would you think it’s Changkyun?”

“--for you to get the fuck over yourself--”

“Did someone say it was Changkyun?”

Minhyuk stops and levels a very specific look at him. It’s the look of a man on his third cup of coffee, nursing a hangover, eating cheese for breakfast, and unwilling to make even more problems for himself at the hand of his roommate who can’t figure out how feelings work. 

“No one had to. I saw you two last night.”

“Oh,” Kihyun says, sinking down onto his arms as Minhyuk types.

“ _ Yeah. _ ”

Kihyun bites down on his lip hard enough for it to hurt. It’s the small punishments, y’know.

“Here,” Minhyuk says. He turns the laptop to face Kihyun, sliding off the bar stool. “I don’t have the available brain capacity on a Sunday morning to explain to you exactly why you’re full of shit. Watch this. I’m going back to bed.”

Kihyun frowns at the screen as Minhyuk ambles off, tupperware in hand. What good is a  _ Youtube  _ video, of all things, going to--

Kihyun reads the title and his heart plummets into his stomach, alerting every butterfly in the vicinity.

Oh.

  
  


\-- Yoo Kihyun ; 1st of March 2018 ; 18:21--

 

 

When Kihyun had walked into his first class ever, at a University his parents were paying good money for to intimate the living shit out of him, he’d sat down between two people who had then turned out to be two of the best friends he’d ever had, while also being two incredibly different people when compared side to side. 

Lee Hoseok, Yoo Kihyun, Lee Minhyuk. Kihyun was in the middle there, somewhere. A Yoo among Lees.

Hoseok is a Pisces, Minhyuk is a Scorpio. Hoseok always pats Kihyun on the back comfortingly while Minhyuk would go on to give him a Youtube video to send him on an emotional spiral he didn’t even know he was capable of. With absolutely no warning, either.

In any case, Kihyun had simply sat his ass down in the only available chair in the lecture hall, made friends in the process, and two years later, found himself in Hoseok’s flat, making quesadillas. None of this had ever been part of his five year plan. He doesn’t even know how to  _ make  _ quesadillas.

(“Google it,” Minhyuk had said and thrown an avocado at him.

Fucking Scorpios.)

“Hey,” a deep voice greets from behind Kihyun as he evenly spaces out chicken on a tortilla. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Kihyun turns around and--

No. No, he most certainly had never met this particular boy before. He would have remembered. He would have remembered, gone home, called his grandmother and apologised for ever doubting the existence of a higher power.

“Uhm,” Kihyun says, ‘eloquently’. “No, we haven’t.”

“I’m Changkyun. Are you Kihyun?”

Kihyun frowns and looks down at his shirt. Had he forgotten to take off his name tag..?

Changkyun laughs, like Kihyun’s thoughts had been loud enough to be heard. “Minhyuk mentioned he’d gotten someone called Kihyun to cook for us. Seemed a bit unfair so I came to ask if you needed some help.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Kihyun says, laughs. “Yeah, I sort of showed up and--bam, responsibilities.”

Changkyun walks forward and--for God’s sake, who  _ looks  _ like this? He’s wearing glasses, a light denim jacket over what looks like the softest white sweater Kihyun has ever seen. His eyes are  _ sharp _ , hair a soft brown, and his face so wonderfully proportioned Kihyun wondered if he could quickly send his grandmother a text about his sudden acceptance of divinity. 

“It looks good!” Changkyun grins. “Oooh, and it smells good… Have you done the guacamole yet? I wouldn't mind doing that. Don’t expect much, though.”

Kihyun exhales in relief. “ _ Thank you _ . I made way too much chicken. I’m gonna walk out here with enough mexican food to feed an army.”

“An army, or one hungry Hyunwoo,” Changkyun jokes, rolling up his sleeves and getting to work on the counter perpendicular to Kihyun. His method of cutting the avocado is probably not the most effective or  _ safe _ , but Kihyun isn’t going to look a (pretty) gift horse in the face.

“Yep, that’s Hyunwoo, alright,” Kihyun smiles, moving his neck from side to side to try and dispel some of the tenseness, and not look to his side at the boy next to him too often. Although he’s sure the boy isn’t unused to getting looked at, Kihyun isn’t going to  _ do  _ that, not unless he was willing to serve some really crispy quesadillas, or lose a finger. “How do you know him?”

“He’s friends with Hyungwon,” Changkyun explained and Kihyun nodded with an understanding “Who I’m dating.” Changkyun gestured widely. “Who dragged me here.”

Kihyun laughs easily. Of course he has a boyfriend. “What, you didn’t want to come?”

“And miss all this lovely socialising? Perish the thought.”

Changkyun grins at him, cheeks dimpling. Of course. Of fucking course he’d have dimples.

“Just kidding. I made him come here. I was promised Mexican food.”

“Well, what do you know, so was I,” Kihyun chuckles, sliding the finished quesadilla onto the tiny stack he’d already made. “They didn’t mention that I’d be the one making it, though.”

“Would you have come if they did?”

“Sadly, probably,” Kihyun says, making a point to sigh disparagingly. “I like Hoseok too much to let Minhyuk cook in his house.”

Changkyun laughs and they fall into a comfortable silence. After a few minutes of it--of not being expected to say anything--Kihyun even lets his shoulders fall from where they’d been tensed and he’d only realised once it started hurting. He isn’t used to comfortable silences, and he most certainly isn’t used to being the one to break them.

“I suppose you’re studying?”

Changkyun looks up, nodding with a soft smile as he re-adjusts his glasses on his nose. “Yep. What gave it away?”

Kihyun shrugs, busying himself to excuse the way he looks away more quickly than probably necessary. “You’re young. And you smile far too easily for someone working a full-time job.”

“I could just be a very optimistic person,” Changkyun defends. “Or like my job.”

“You  _ are  _ a student, though. Right?”

“Well,  _ obviously _ . Just trying to understand what led you to the assumption, true or no.”

“What if we just call it a lucky guess and save me the trouble?”

“I don’t know, I’m now very curious about these ‘student’ vibes I give off.”

Kihyun narrows his eyes. “You’re being purposefully difficult.”

“Well, yes, but look how easily the conversation is flowing,” Changkyun grins, quite literally tongue in cheek, placing a bowl of guacamole next to Kihyun’s stack of quesadillas. “I’m done.”

“Oh,” Kihyun blinks down at the green goop. He’d never been a fan of guacamole. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Changkyun says, and leaves to the sitting room. Kihyun swallows, takes a breath and focuses on the food. It only kind of works.

  
  


 

\--- Im Changkyun ; 1st of March 2018 ; 20:34 --

 

 

He meets Kihyun at a friend of a friend's twenty fourth birthday party, and it feels a lot like a planned demolition. Everything falls, breaks, into place. It's an enormous pile of rubble, but in a structured kind of way. Changkyun doesn't know it when he meets him--of course he doesn't--but somewhere there's a timer going off, bombs in strategic places, in all those sensitive areas that will make Changkyun crumble in on himself. 

And all he’s done is made some mediocre guacamole.  

“Wait,” Kihyun says, effectively stopping Changkyun's words with a single pointed finger. They’ve finished all the quesadillas. “You're in Mun’s class?”

“Not often, but yes.”

Kihyun sits back, frowning as he finishes the dregs of his drink. “Haven't seen you.”

“Maybe you weren't looking,” Changkyun teases, looking around as Kihyun shrugs and walks off to, most likely, refill his glass. Hyungwon is busy, loudly complaining about the hygiene standards of beer pong, and Changkyun stares at him, trying his best to feel something.

“He's handsome,” Kihyun comments idly about Hyungwon, as people tend to do, falling down next to Changkyun again, the couch dipping with age and wear and added weight. “How long have you two been dating?”

Changkyun blinks, trying to remember. “Er, a few months. Less than six, more than three.” That same, antsy, restless feeling claws at him and made him shift in his seat. 

“Hey, are you okay? You look pale, all of a sudden.” 

There's a hand on his knee and he's so  _ sick  _ of this question and he jumps up, speaking without looking at the near stranger with eyes so sharp Changkyun wasn't sure he'd believe whatever lie came out of Changkyun's mouth in any case. So, for once, Changkyun doesn't lie. It's not like Kihyun knows him, or cares, and he might as well tell someone. 

“No. Thanks. I'm going to the bathroom.”

Changkyun walks away and when he comes back, Kihyun isn't there anymore, and Hyungwon finds him with wide, concerned eyes and Changkyun tries his best, tries so fucking hard, to feel anything at all. And then he kicks himself mentally, hard, so hard he winces, because  _ fuck, Changkyun, you know you care about him, what are you doing _ . 

He assures Hyungwon he's okay, and the older man’s hand, large, warm and reassuring, lingers for a moment before he goes back outside. Changkyun takes a deep breath and walks over to where Kihyun had filled his glass, finds one of his own, and fills it with the nearest alcoholic drink he can find. 

  
  


\--- 2 Hours Later --

  
  


He's a few drinks in and not a lot matters anymore. Everyone has moved outside--”The weather is so nice!” the birthday boy, Hoseok, sing-songs as he drags Changkyun out by the hand--and Changkyun finds a spot on a short wall in the garden, behind a crowded couch, part of the group but also not. Changkyun takes a deep breath, smells pizza and weed and cologne, and looks up at the stars. 

He used to know the names to so many stars. Used to know how to find North and South just by looking up, knew how to point out constellations and impress polite company. Now, he thinks about how many of the lights he sees in the sky had burned out long before humanity had decided to give them names in the first place. 

Someone sits down next to him and he remembers the boy with the dark hair and big glasses. 

“You disappeared earlier,” Kihyun starts. “Was it something I said?” Changkyun shakes his head. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” Changkyun repeats the action, before looking back up. 

“Amazing, isn't it,” Kihyun sighs, leaning back on his hands and smiling up at the sky. 

“I'd have gone for slightly polluted, but sure. ”

Kihyun scoffs, unaffected. “You've been staring at the sky for ten minutes, and I highly doubt it's the slight pollution you find so fascinating.”

“It is, though,” Changkyun says, as if to himself. “Not all of it, obviously, but…” Changkyun takes a breath and puffs it right back out. “Whatever, it’s stupid.”

“Everything’s a little bit stupid, Changkyun.”

Changkyun looks over and Kihyun’s eyes are closed. Changkyun almost laughs. Almost. Instead, he just looks at him. Changkyun doesn’t know Kihyun, and doesn’t owe him anything, so he knows that when he thinks ‘he’s beautiful’, it’s because it’s objective fact. His face is angled up and his profile cuts through the soft light shining through the windows, but his lips are full and slightly parted. 

When Changkyun breathes again, it’s with difficulty. 

“Are you okay?” 

It’s Changkyun that asks this time. Kihyun blinks, frowning softly as he looks over. “What?”

“If you had to answer honestly,” Changkyun starts, and Kihyun’s looking at him and he looks back and he just talk and he’s not sure why. “Like, actually answer honestly. I think I’ve been asked if I’m okay, what, seven times since I got here? Maybe it’s just my face--” The corner of Kihyun’s lips quirk up, teasing at a smile. “But what if you, honest to god, had to admit to someone if you’re okay or not. What would you say?”

Kihyun bites at his bottom lip, and looks away.

“Ask me again.”

Minhyuk and Jooheon laugh on the couch that would be in earshot if there wasn’t music and conversations dulling the air, and Changkyun thinks about the night before, about how he’d woken up and Hyungwon had been right there, nestled into the bed. He thinks about how he’d gotten up and gone to the bathroom just to sit there, in the dark, because somehow it seemed preferable. He thinks about how all he’d wanted was for someone to hold him, and that there had been someone on the other side of the wall who he could wake up and he’d do just that. Hyungwon would just smile and pull him closer. It should be as easy as that. 

Changkyun takes a deep breath and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Sometimes.”   
  
  


\-- Im Changkyun ; 1st of March 2019 ; 19:34 --

  
  


“How do you know this guy again?” 

Bass-heavy music bleeds through the walls of a suburban house Changkyun is sure he’s seen somewhere before. It looks like something out of a John Hughes movie and it takes him all but five seconds to work out a way to get on the roof; if those vines hold, that is.

Hyungwon shifts next to him, pulling at the black choker around his neck.

“He joined the Drama club recently and invited all of us to his birthday party,” Hyungwon says simply, and Changkyun frowns because--

“Isn’t Hoseok--”

“A swimmer? Yeah.”

“No, didn’t we go to his birthday party last year as well?”

Hyungwon frowns, shifts again. It’s like the damn floor is on fire or something, with how restless he looks. “Yeah… Amazed you remembered that, with how drunk you got...”

It was the night he’d met Yoo Kihyun.

It was a few days before Changkyun broke up with Hyungwon.

“You look nervous.”

Hyungwon rolls forward onto the tip of his toes, back to his heels, deliberately, ruminating. “Well spotted.”

“Do you like him? Hoseok, I mean.” Hyungwon winces at the question and Changkyun sighs. “Dude, it’s been a year, you don’t have to feel awkward about liking someone else--”

“I know, I know!”

A moment of silence. Changkyun leans forward and squints. “Do you think those vines would hold?”

“It shows how long I’ve known you that I assumed you’d show me a video on your phone.”

“What, why?”

“Vines.”

“Hah, right.”

Another pause. Are they going inside or…?

“If they hold, I can definitely get up there. Or down from there.”

“Why would you… want to?”

“You don’t know how the night’s going to go, man.”

Hyungwon massages his temple, quitely distressed.

“Come on,” Changkyun sighs and pulls at his Hyungwon’s skinny arm. “No use looking pretty on the pavement. I assume there will be alcohol at this birthday party.”

Hyungwon drags behind him like the tail of a lethargic cat. 

“Dear God, I hope so.”

It’s a party, so of course there’s alcohol, and everything else a party needs to fit that very description. There’s booze, loud music, weed (he's pretty sure but not  _ really _ sure) and a kitchen filled with people milling about around the punch bowl like birds around a fountain. Changkyun is perched on the counter next to it. 

This is his bowl. If bowls be fountains, he’s a statue.

Changkyun raises his drink to no-one in particular and drinks to his own dumb-ass metaphor.

Hyungwon walks into the kitchen and leans onto him, Changkyun’s own little pigeon. Hyungwon’s staring off into the living room from whence he came, couches pushed to the edges of the room to allow space for dancing, and dance they do. 

Changkyun isn’t drunk enough for  _ that  _ quite yet, only tethering on the edge of sober and tipsy. Hyungwon is staring into the living room, but not really. Hyungwon has always been privy to staring into space without blinking and it always makes him look on the brink of unlocking the secrets to the universe. The secrets of the universe, at the moment, being a dancing, grinning Lee Hoseok.

“Hey. Why don’t you ask him to dance?”

“He’s already dancing,” Hyungwon mumbles. “Bit redundant.”

Changkyun leans over carefully to snatch another thin red paper cup and fill it with what was almost entirely vodka in the guise of cherry red punch.

“That makes your job easier, then, doesn’t it?” Changkyun grins and holds out the cup. Hyungwon downs it, grimacing as Changkyun laughs.

“Did you do this?”

“Not my fault they leave the spirits unchecked,” Changkyun shrugs as Hyungwon throws the cup towards the trash bin and misses. “Dude, just, like, actually talk to him, if you’re so against just jumping in there and grinding.”

“Why must you speak like this? Like some sort of--” Hyungwon waves his hands about, squinting. “--Harlatan.”

“It’s either charlatan or harlot,” Changkyun points out, pushing Hyungwon to stand without using Changkyun as a physical support mechanism. “And I’m not happy about either of those.”

Hyungwon doesn’t reply, as the object of his affections laughs, shrugging off his leather jacket and throwing it onto the nearest coach. He’s fit. Really, really fit, but when he smiles, he looks like an innocent little bunny rabbit. Hyungwon lets out a soft little whimper and Changkyun pats him reassuringly on the back and just lets him lean on him again. How could he not.

After all, Changkyun has known Hyungwon for a little less than three years now, after Changkyun’s mother had felt the desperate need to move away after the divorce ( _ new sights, new people, etc etc _ ) and he had to attend a whole new school, build a whole new life. Changkyun hadn’t minded, not really. Even though he’d grown up around all those people, knew most of them simply through years of shared schools and time spent in each other’s relative presence, he’d never had a true friend. 

Nobody like Hyungwon or Jooheon, who had accepted him so quickly he’d almost thought it was all a joke. (You know the deal; they’d befriend him, make him prom king and then bam, pig blood, and he’d destroy the town with his newfound telekinesis. It didn’t seem likely, but hey, it wasn’t  _ that  _ unlikely _. _ )

Even now, in college, Hyungwon, despite putting absolutely no effort into it, is popular. Changkyun pins it on plain disinterest translating into mystery. The part-time modelling and dry sense of humour doesn’t hurt, either. Jooheon is popular, too, in his own right. He’s blatantly talented and charismatic, and whenever anyone would tell him that, he’d blush and deny it which is arguably part of his effortless charm. 

They’re ‘popular’, and due to the transient quality of college, so is Changkyun. 

Kind of.

For a while there, Changkyun and Hyungwon had even been the Power Couple of The Decade or whatever the hell. It was something between wanting a boyfriend, already knowing Hyungwon, and completely forgetting to take into consideration physical attraction and romantic feeling.

They didn’t work as a couple, but as friends? Couldn’t be better.

Hoseok send a smile their way, and Changkyun violently jossles his now best friend who groans, eyes closed.

“Hyungwon--”

“Mmm.”

“I think it would be a good idea to tighten your grasp on consciousness right now because I  _ think _ \--”

“Hi!” Hoseok greets, and Hyungwon jumps, nearly pushing Changkyun off the counter. Changkyun flails a bit but finds his balance.

“Sorry for interrupting, er,” Hoseok says, glancing between the two of them. People always did that. “I didn’t get to greet you earlier, sorry. Are you two having fun?” 

Hyungwon nods adamantly, like he’s never agreed with anything more in his life.

“Yeah! Yeah, it’s great, nice birthday, happy party.” Hyungwon winces. “Happy Birthday, nice party’... Is what I meant.”

“Thank you!” Hoseok beams, and it’s not  _ fair. _ “I was going to ask if you wanted to dance…? With me?” 

Hyungwon keeps staring at him and Hoseok shifts awkwardly, cheeks tinted pink. Hoseok immediately looks deeply regretful.

“Or… Er… Not. If you don’t want to, that’s okay, I was just--”

Changkyun pushes Hyungwon forward and almost laughs out loud at the comical expression on Hyungwon’s face as he trips over his own feet and balances himself with two hands stretched out on Hoseok’s chest. Hyungwon flinches away like it burns.

“He’d love to dance,” Changkyun says innocently, “Wouldn’t you, Hyungwon?”

Hyungwon glares at Changkyun before nodding, shyly ( _ cute! _ ) and Hoseok smiles so widely it must hurt his pinchable pink cheeks, before dragging Hyungwon away. Changkyun sighs wistfully.

To hell if he isn’t the best wingman/ex boyfriend of the century.

Hyungwon dances with his crush and Changkyun is content, sitting there. Changkyun is disconnected from the party, but still a part of it. People he barely knows approach him and strike up a conversation and laugh at his jokes and Changkyun barely drinks his way through two cups of punch. He’s not keen on drinking. Never has been, but he likes that people thinks he is. 

Changkyun becomes the official punch dispenser, and that’s just fine with him.

“Uhm… can you move, please?”

Changkyun blinks himself back into the present and there’s a boy glaring at him. Not… glaring, maybe? Nah, his eyes are soft. And pretty. But apparently he’s not too keen on Changkyun’s choice of seating.

He recognises him. Yoo Kihyun. Of course he recognises him; he’s the reason he broke up with Hyungwon. Not that Kihyun knew that. Or knew that when Kihyun smiled at him, just casually, in class, around campus, Changkyun’s day was just immediately… better.

And still, Changkyun feels like being difficult for no real reason.

“But my butt and the cold, hard unforgiving countertop have bonded, you see.”

“Bond somewhere else,” Kihyun scoffs, walking past him to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water. (It reminds Changkyun of every time he’s passed him on campus, books held in hand, earphones in, paying no mind and keeping his head down, like even if Changkyun  _ wanted  _ to talk to him, he’d have to circumvent a few obstacles. Which, you know, fair.) “Find it a chair, or a couch or something.”

Although, now that Changkyun is talking to him, he’s struggling to do so, like his words are too heavy or too light, not finding that comfortable equilibrium.

“You’re awfully protective of a countertop.”

“Someone’s gonna have to clean it, aren’t they,” he points out with a finger, glancing at the crowd in the living room. He fidgets with the plastic top of the bottle, turning the blue between his fingers. He looks nervous enough (subtly, though; Kihyun has confidence, it’s obvious, but not right now) that Changkyun slips off the counter, pushing his sleeve over his hand and rubbing it ardently over where he’d sat. When he looks up, Kihyun’s smiling.

“Why, thank you,” he says, and slips away. Changkyun doesn’t see him again for four hours.   
  
  


 

\-- Yoo Kihyun ; 1st of March 2019 ; 22:45 --

  
  


 

“It’s a lot like,” Changkyun starts, leaning with his entire weight on the back of the couch that would most certainly have tipped over had it not been weighed down by Lee Hoseok sitting on the other side of it. “Throwing spaghetti at a wall.”

“Why is it that all your metaphors are food related,” Hyungwon says, looking awkwardly comfortable at Hoseok’s side.

“Wait, what was the other one?” Changkyun frowns, and Kihyun simply stuffs a handful of chips (parties always have chips) into his mouth, watching the conversation from his spot on the opposite couch with amusement in his eyes.

“The religion cake one.”

“That’s applicable to a lot more than religion,” Changkyun defends, and Kihyun chews a bit faster to swallow and ask--

“What’s the metaphor?”

Changkyun looks up, smiling delightedly and clamoring over the couch and only stepping on Hoseok a little in the process.

“The cake one?”

“Yeah, I’m curious now.”

“Right, so you know how everyone loves cake. I’m not particularly partial to cake but that’s irrelevant to the metaphor. Cake is a near-universal concept for a thing people like.”

Kihyun nods, smile tugging at his lips. “People like cake. I’m aware. Go on.”

“Right, yes, so,” Changkyun takes a long swig of his drink before putting the cup down to incorporate both his hands into his gesticulation. “If there was a cake on a table, and someone asked you to try it, you’d probably give it a chance.” Changkyun pauses, and Kihyun nods slowly and the boy grins even wider. “ _ But _ , if someone were to take the cake and shove it down your throat, you’d have some trouble enjoying said cake, no matter how nice said cake is.”

Kihyun nods again, slower this time, not attempting to hide his amusement. “And the cake is…?”

“The cake,” Changkyun says, seriously. “Is Jesus.”

Kihyun raises his eyebrows and juts out his bottom lip. “Makes sense.”

Hyungwon turns so Kihyun would be able to see him frown. “ _ Makes sense?  _ Who  _ are _ you?”

Kihyun shifts where he sat. “He has a point. Nobody likes things when they’re forced on you.”

“Well, yes,” Hoseok adds helpfully. “But why cake?”

Changkyun whines, picking up his cup again. “I explained this! It had to be something nice.”

“Wait, so why are you throwing spaghetti at a wall?”

“I’m not, it’s a metaphor.”

Hyungwon sighs and turns back to the laptop. “Right. Tell Kihyun. He seems to be interested enough to pay attention.”

Changkyun rolls his eyes with a groan, and Kihyun coughs into his hand. “I’m just  _ explaining  _ how it feels when you’ve got a little bit of an idea but you kinda have to wait for something to stick, like throwing spaghetti at a--”

“We’re back!” Minhyuk and Jooheon sing-song in sync, arm in arm as the walk into the living room, and Changkyun melts over the couch, hair flopping over with gravity.

“Ugh, I give up…”

“Well, you certainly look like you could use this,” Minhyuk laughs, and Changkyun raises his head, scrunches his nose, and Kihyun can see  _ why _ .

“Jesus, Minhyuk, is that weed?” Kihyun asks, not having to, really. He can smell it from over here.

“Yes! I’m gonna Dutch oven this bitch--”

“Oh god, that’s really not what it’s called--”

“Hot box, Minhyuk, Jesus Christ,” Hyungwon laughs, hiding his face behind a hand and Kihyun laughs, too, shaking his head and standing up.

“ _ Noooo _ , where are you going?” Changkyun pouts up at Kihyun, reminding Kihyun with all the subtlety of being rear-ended by a tank, about his small, not so small crush, on Im Changkyun. “I’m the only single person here, you can’t do this to me!”

Hyungwon frowns over. “Uhm, I’m not--”

Hoseok shuts Hyungwon up with a kiss.

“Retracted,” Hyungwon squeaks.

“See!” Changkyun motions, pouting some more. Suddenly, Kihyun’s backbone is made of jelly. So he sighs, plops back down and watches as Changkyun grins wide and scrambles over, snatching the weed out of Minhyuk’s hand. “Group bong initiated.”

“You and Minhyuk,” Hoseok says. “Are no longer allowed to talk.”

“Honestly? Fair enough.”   
  
  


\--- Im Changkyun ; 2nd of March 2019 ; 00:23 --

  
  


“Your--” Kihyun laughs, leaning into him, eyes a little red and giggling at random intervals. “Your cake reminded me of tea.”

“What, are they, like, buddies?”

“No, no, no!” Kihyun whines. “There’s a--there’s a video about  _ tea _ , right, being consent--”

“Oh, god, no, I’ve seen that!” Changkyun laughs. “Did you--did you see the parody one?”

Kihyun makes a funny face, chin turning into a damn walnut, voice deep. “If you can understand,” he quotes said video. “How much I like tea, you can understand what a massive slut I am.”

It’s not particularly funny, but it makes Changkyun laugh so hard his stomach hurts. Kihyun holds him up and when he does, they’re so close they can kiss, so they do.

This is why it never worked out with Hyungwon. 

‘This’ is a simple kiss. That’s all it takes, too. A year ago, it had taken far less. The two days since Changkyun met Yoo Kihyun, when Changkyun thought about his brief meeting with him more than he thought about his then boyfriend, he knew that what he had wasn’t love and it never would be. 

Changkyun had cried. A lot. It’s never easy to break up with anyone, especially not when they sincerely, honestly love you while you do.

He broke Hyungwon’s heart. That wasn’t very simple.

One year later, he kisses the reminder of why he did it in the first place. It hadn’t been Kihyun, specifically, maybe. Not really. But then again, it kind of was.

Because it’s as simple as a kiss being more than something you do in a relationship, or before you have sex. It’s as simple as wanting, needing to kiss someone for the sake of kissing them, and being kissed back like that’s all they want, too. It’s being attracted to someone and yet wanting to know everything about them. It’s wanting to spend lazy nights with them for the rest of your life, and finding it very difficult to imagine yourself being naked and vulnerable and open with anyone else.

So, Changkyun presses himself up against Kihyun and it  _ feels  _ in a way it had never felt. It means more, it feels more. It’s hard not to feel oddly guilty either, feeling this over a crush, and having never felt it in a relationship.

Kihyun leans away, eyes dazed and lips kissed red. “Are--Are you okay?”

Changkyun rolls his eyes and tips Kihyun back as they kiss on Hoseok’s balcony.

“Yes,” Changkyun sighs into his mouth, and Kihyun feels warm under him, the night air cold, colder still on the sweat at the back of Changkyun’s neck. “Yes. And I’m tired of just being okay sometimes.”

“Okay,” Kihyun says and there are hands on his face, under his shirt, over his legs. He touches Changkyun like he’s precious, but strong, like he’s trying to open a present he’s wanted for years without tearing the wrapping. “So… tea?”

Changkyun pulls away to laugh. “Yes, please.”

“Extra sugar?”

“Oh, god, shut up!”

They kiss for hours.   
  
  


\-- Yoo Kihyun ; 4th of March 2019 ; 11:44 --

  
  


Kihyun steps into the library, notes in his hand and a weight in his chest. It’s odd, walking around, then, with the knowledge that he’s in love, that he’d made a mistake while also  _ not _ , but when running away, he did. It’s the knowledge, too, of suddenly being one half of something big, something he’d never expected, never… wanted, really. To be so reliant on someone else’s happiness, it never seemed like something he’d want. But then, at that stupid party after Minhyuk decided to get everyone in the room a little high, Changkyun had been sad.

(“I heard you and Hyungwon broke up,” Kihyun had said, closing the door behind them, the air crisp on the balcony outside..

“Ages ago,” Changkyun had replied.

“Any particular reason?” Kihyun had asked.

“I wanted to kiss you at that party,” Changkyun had admitted, Kihyun’s heart doing many a thing in his chest.

“And at this one?”

He’d been quiet, and asked for Kihyun to just pass the goddamn bong.)

The weight sits so heavy in his chest that Kihyun feels like all solid matter around him is merely an illusion, that if he touches the nearest wall, it would fall away like dust carried in the breeze.

And it’s terrible, because  _ yes, thank you and fuck you, Lee Minhyuk, I’m in love with Changkyun _ .

All it took was one stupid YouTube video-- _ 6 Clear Signs You’re In Love-- _ to point that out in a way that felt a lot like having his brain and heart under a microscope.

Kihyun doesn’t notice he’s walking too fast. Someone bumps into his shoulder--solid, tangible--and knocks him back into reality with all the gentleness of pulling a tooth. They apologise quickly and he gives a small nod of acknowledgement. The notes in his hands--his own, Business Studies, to give to Minhyuk later that day because he never takes his own damn notes--suddenly feels a lot like an extension of the weight in his chest.

It is really, really, simple.  _ Really _ .

All he needed to do was find Changkyun in the literature section on the third floor (he has a study group, he’d be there, he always is) and talk about what happened two days ago, and move on with his life. It was what he’d planned on doing. Despite Minhyuk’s pestering to ask the boy out.

_ The boy. Funny way of referring to a person you’re in love with. Ugh. _

He can’t do it. His hands are sweating and his heart is beating so hard he can hear it in his ears. Kihyun quickly turns heel and power-walks out of that building like it’s on fire, but he doesn’t want to panic the people around him. 

He made out! With Changkyun!  _ A lot!  _ And then ran away! 

He needs--he needs more time, to think of something, an apology, something that won’t end up too badly, maybe even… With a date?

Fuck.

He keeps his head ducked, walks fast, and falls right onto his ass as a boy turned the corner, running right into him, and knocking all the wind out of his chest as he falls on top of Kihyun.

Changkyun. Of fucking course it would be Changkyun. 

Kihyun blinks up at him--odd, that he already knows what Changkyun looks like from this close up, but it was different in the light of Hoseok’s balcony--and tries to find his thoughts. They were scattered on the pavement with the notes, they had to be, what with him just  _ lying there _ .

“Kihyun?” Changkyun pants, breaths heavy from running.

“Honorifics,” Kihyun wheezes in turn. “And, uhm, ow.”

“Right!” Changkyun clambers off, red faced and looking around. “S-sorry, hyung. I was late for a--for a study thingy--which, you know, explains the running. I only run when I’m late for stuff.”

Kihyun doesn’t have a clue how to respond, and this seems to be the best thing he can come up with; “Ugh, my ass fucking hurts.”

Changkyun laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Never heard that one before...”

If there were any crickets nearby, they’d lose their goddamn minds at this beautifully awkward opportunity they’d been presented.

“Er, I mean--”

“--I know what you meant it’s okay--”

“Do you? Because I don’t--”

Khyun laughs. “No, I don’t, sorry, you just look like you--”

“Want the earth to vore me? Yeah.” Changkyun pauses, and looked at the ground in abject horror. “ _ Why did I say that. _ ”

Kihyun laughs again--what the actual fuck is he doing that for anyway--and shifts, wincing. Jokes aside, he’d fallen right on his backside and it is most definitely bruised. He gestures to the small stack of papers, now scattered across the pavement. “I… was supposed to give that to Minhyuk...”

“His savior,” Changkyun quips, shifting to his knees to pick up the notes. “Dude, you should really have numbered these...”

“Well, they’re all printed,” Kihyun mumbles, ears hot.  _ Why. Why. Why does it suddenly matter so much, you’ve known this boy for a year, just cos you made out--oh god--it didn’t matter--  _ “I can just print them again.”

Changkyun pauses, papers in his hands, falling back to his haunches. “That… That does sound easier for us both, doesn’t it.”

“Still littering. What have I become.”

“I ran into you, it’s not your fault.”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.”

_ Except _ , Kihyun thinks.  _ Except that this is one hell of a coincidence. Except that it feels a lot like where he’s supposed to be _ ,  _ anyway _ .

“I’m sorry,” Changkyun says to the ground and Kihyun frowns.

“I told you, it’s not your fault.”

“N-not for this, for making a fool of myself when I was high,” Changkyun said, scratching the back of his neck, blushing a pretty pink. ( _ Pretty? Pretty?! _ ) “And, er, before that, too, I guess.”

“Oh,” Kihyun says, as eloquently as always. He has a brief, vivid recollection of Changkyun pulling him closer and Kihyun thinking he was going to  _ die _ and how he’d felt a million different things at that moment but not one of them had equated to not wanting to be kissed. It was terrifying. The words  _ you’re in love with him _ flashes across the front of his conscious mind yet again, the panic in his chest pressing tighter, tighter. He takes a breath and there was barely any space for it. “It’s okay, you were… funny. And--” Kihyun turns an impressive red. “Good at it.”

Changkyun picks up another paper, struggling to lift the flat edge off the pavement with his finger. Kihyun notes Changkyun’s hands are shaking a little and reaches out to put his hand over Changkyun’s an exact second and a half before he realises what he was doing. But see, now he’s already doing it. He might as well own up to it.

Now…

The thing is--the thing _i_ _ s _ \--

The thing is that Kihyun doesn’t do well under pressure. He doesn’t. He didn’t do well in embarrassing situations, his body collapsed like a dying star in embarrassing situations, cringing in on itself and lashing out to hit or hide behind the nearest human being. He didn’t do well under pressure--pacing until his legs hurt, cleaning until there was nothing left to clean, doing and saying stupid,  _ stupid  _ things. He cracked under pressure where others excelled and turned into diamonds or whatever the fuck. Nope. Not he.

He took challenges and tried to excel. But pressure? He's working on it.

Changkyun pouts at the papers. It was so stupidly endearing Kihyun had to mentally roundkick himself.

_ Crack _ .

“Let’s throw them in the fountain.”

Changkyun looks up, and laughs like he wasn’t expecting to laugh. “What?”

“Let’s throw them in the fountain,” Kihyun repeats, nodding at his own stupid idea. “If I’m gonna have to redo it, I want a picture of Business notes floating on the surface of the shallow university fountain. I’ll present it to my photography professor as a… I don’t know. Modern art. People get away with anything nowadays.”

Changkyun laughs again, picking up the last few papers and getting up. “Well.  _ Alright _ . You first.”

Kihyun nods with meaning, taking the papers in his hand and walking a few paces to his left the courtyard fountain. An old, guano topped statue looms in the middle of it as if to say ‘don’t throw your unorganised, Business notes into this fountain, young man.’

_ I do what I want _ .

“One at a time or all at once?”

Right,  _ Changkyun _ . Changkyun who  _ had _ to be the reason he’s doing this stupid shit. 

Kihyun stutters, having no idea, really.

“You--You say!.”

“This was  _ your _ idea.”

“Right,” Kihyun says in a higher tone than intended. “Maybe we shouldn’t throw them in the fountain--”

Changkyun laughs. “No, no, no, you’ve gotten me all excited for this now, we have to commit to it.”

Kihyun shoves the papers into Changkyun’s arms. Well, he tries to. 

“You do it!”

“Hey, no fair!” Changkyun laughs and shoves half of the papers right back.

“It’s completely fair, and I have the bruised ass to show for it.”

“You are  _ obsessed  _ with your ass, man.”

Kihyun realises he’s laughing. Realises he is trying not to, but laughing anyway. 

“Together?” Changkyun asks through a grin, swaying the papers they are holding between them as if to gain momentum. Kihyun nods, catching his breath and grinning.

“On three?”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three!” the shout in unison, chucking the papers into the fountain and looking at them as they fall like very big pieces of confetti and then as they float to the surface of the fountain. The regret is palpable. 

“We’re gonna have to fish them all out, aren’t we.”

Changkyun nods. “Yeah.”

“This wasn’t my best idea.”

Changkyun reaches up to cover his mouth with his hand, barely disguising the expression on his face. “After we take the picture, though.”

“Lemme just,” Kihyun starts, shifting his camera bag to his front and taking out his professional, expensive camera, to aim it at the floating dredges of his notes. 

_ Crack _ .

He can’t focus the picture with how hard he’s shaking, trying not to laugh.

“Kihyun--?”

“This is what I’ve come to,” Kihyun wheezes. “Soggy paper pictures.”

“Not usually your focus of study?”

Kihyun grips at his stomach. “End me, I’ve hit rock bottom.”

“No!” Changkyun assures him, patting at Kihyun’s back as he shakes with barely contained laughter. Hysteria? Maybe? “No, come on, that’s not true, I’m sure you’ve taken much worse pictures.”

Kihyun turns his head. “Are you  _ serious right now _ ?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen your pictures!” Changkyun laughs. “And hey, like you said, you could use this for some kind of… modern expose about… I don’t know, the fickleness of the written word.”

Kihyun straightens up, wiping his tears. “God. Yeah, alright--”

And when he looks up, Changkyun is smiling at him in a very unique, unrestrained sort of way.

_ Crack _ .

Except it didn’t feel like cracking. It feels like melting.

Because Kihyun isn’t an idiot. He recognised the warmth in his chest; he’d felt it many times before, had made him realise his not so small crush on a friend of a friend of his. It’s hot--spreading up the back of his neck, his cheeks, the tips of his ears--but warm--like a fluffy blanket, hot chocolate on a stormy day, a hug when you haven’t been touched in days. He realises that he is looking at someone else, now, it’s Changkyun, but other than that, he looks...  _ familiar _ . Like a face in dreams he can’t remember. Like seeing his own reflection for the first time.

Kihyun takes in a sharp breath and says the wrong thing.

“I have to go.”

And then Changkyun stops smiling. 

“Oh. Okay. This was fun, though,” Changkyun says, mouth in a line. “I’ll just--” He gestures to the fountain and before Changkyun can finish his thought, a different brand of panic kicks in--the one his mother had instilled within him at an early age, that incredible sense of responsibility that propelled him through college and kept him going home every day despite everything--and Kihyun moves forward without thinking, leaning forward to grab as much paper as he can, because leaving now was leaving Changkyun with this mess his panicked mind had wrought.

A hand stops him, jerking him back and he flounders, tripping over his own feet and into the weight. Into Changkyun.

The universe, seemingly, really had it out for him.

“Wha,” Kihyun splutters as he clings onto the younger boy, confused and disorientated.

“Your camera,” Changkyun says, voice small. “You were bending over, it’s around your neck, it was gonna go in the water, so-sorry.”

“Oh! Wow, thanks,” Kihyun says, getting to his feet and letting go of Changkyun with as much nonchalance as a man with a red face could have. “Uh, lemme just help you and then--then I’ll go.”

“Thanks,” Changkyun smiled again, sitting down on the fountain’s edge and rolling up his sleeves. Kihyun looks away. It wasn’t fair to look good doing something practical like rolling up your fucking sleeves to not get them wet. Honestly. “Do you have class?”

Kihyun scoffs, joining Changkyun in fishing for soggy paper.

“Kind of the point of university, isn’t it.”

“Fair enough, but no, I meant... right now.”

“Oh.”  _ No. _ “Yes. Well. A group project thing. Have to meet up, you know.”

Changkyun grimaces. “Ew, group projects.”

Kihyun laughs softly. “What, not a people person?”

“We’re all people persons, it’s what makes us human,” Changkyun quips and Kihyun rolls his eyes at the clump of paper in his hands. “I’m just an introvert and a terrible procrastinator.”

Kihyun shivers at the prospect. “I can’t procrastinate, I’d break out in hives from the stress.”

“The trick  _ is _ that there is no trick and this is a habit that will one day be my demise.”

“Not unless you procrastinate death itself.”

“Good point,” Changkyun chuckles, looking up at him and Kihyun realised he was staring just a bit. Not his fault, really. Changkyun is an incredibly beautiful person and it wasn’t fair . He clears his throat, quickly gathers most of the rest of it, and getting up to throw it away in the nearest trash can.

“Are you okay?”

Kihyun whips around.

Is he?

A year ago, give or take a day, this same boy asked him the same question, had told him to be honest despite all else, and what he’d said was ‘sometimes’.

_ I don’t want to only be okay sometimes _ .

Kihyun blinks, and steps forward, and kisses him. Changkyun melts so quickly it’s like he’s just been waiting for Kihyun to do just that. It’s so warm and soft and far, far more than okay. He leans away because this is a public place, otherwise minutes would become hours again and we all know how that goes. 

Changkyun looks at him, absolutely dazed.

“Don’t you have a--a group project?”

“I panicked and lied.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?” Kihyun near whispers, and Changkyun’s eyes are so searching, for anything. Before they find it, and with it, a smile.

“I am now.”

 


End file.
